King Richard III died painfully on battlefield

[Buster's Uncle]

King Richard III died painfully on battlefield
Associated Press
By MARIA CHENG  34 minutes ago



This is an undated file photo released by the University of Leicester, England, of remains found underneath a car park in September 2012 in Leicester, which have been declared "beyond reasonable doubt" to be the long lost remains of England's King Richard III, missing for 500 years. Since the skeleton of the 15th-century king was discovered, scientists have done numerous studies. Richard’s skeleton showed evidence of 11 injuries from medieval weapons noting one of the skull injuries showed a sword had pierced his head entirely. The nine injuries Richard suffered to his head prove the king somehow lost or took off his helmet during the battle at Bosworth Field, against Henry Tudor. (AP Photo/University of Leicester)



LONDON (AP) — England's King Richard III might well have lost his kingdom for a horse.

The reviled king suffered nearly a dozen injuries on the battlefield, but the fatal blows were probably only sustained after he had to abandon his horse, according to a new paper.

Since the skeleton of the 15th-century king was discovered under a parking lot in central England in 2012, scientists have done numerous studies, including an examination of his twisted spine that led Shakespeare to label him a hunchback. In the latest research, published Wednesday in the journal Lancet, scientists used computer scans and other methods to analyze the king's skeletal wounds.

"Richard was probably in quite a lot of pain at the end," said Sarah Hainsworth, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Leicester and one of the study authors. She said the king was most likely attacked by numerous assailants after dismounting from his horse, which got stuck in a marsh.

Richard's skeleton showed evidence of 11 injuries from weapons including daggers, swords and a long metal pole with an axe and hook that was used to pull knights off their horses. "Medieval battle was bloody and brutal," she said, noting one of the skull injuries showed a sword had pierced his head.

The nine injuries Richard suffered to his head prove the king somehow lost or took off his helmet during the battle at Bosworth Field, against Henry Tudor, on Aug. 22, 1485. He was the last English monarch to die in battle.



This undated photo issued on Wednesday Sept. 17, 2014 by the University of Leicester shows a scan showing injuries to the skull of King Richard III, the inset image shows close up of injury. Richard’s skeleton showed evidence of 11 injuries from medieval weapons noting one of the skull injuries showed a sword had pierced his head entirely. The nine injuries Richard suffered to his head prove the king somehow lost or took off his helmet during the battle at Bosworth Field, against Henry Tudor. (AP Photo, University of Leicester)


Even if Richard's injuries had been treatable, it was highly unlikely his rivals would have shown him mercy, said Steven Gunn, an associate professor of history at Oxford University, who was not part of the research.

"A live ex-king is just an embarrassment," he said.

Gunn also said it was significant there were no attempts to disfigure Richard. "Having evidence that the real Richard III is dead is very useful," he said. "You don't want somebody popping up somewhere later claiming to be the real king."

Hainsworth said the wounds in Richard's skeleton match historical accounts that he fought until the very end.

"This doesn't tell us anything about what kind of king he was or the controversy surrounding his nephews," she said, referring to rumors that Richard murdered his two nephews to protect his throne. "Whatever else people think about him, he fought bravely until he died."

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Online:

http://www.thelancet.com


http://news.yahoo.com/king-richard-iii-died-painfully-battlefield-223152998.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Forensic sleuths sketch Richard III's brutal end
AFP
By Richard Ingham  43 minutes ago



An undated handout picture released on February 4, 2013 from the University of Leicester shows the full skull of the skeleton of King Richard III found at the Grey Friars Church excavation site in Leicester (AFP Photo/)



Paris (AFP) - King Richard III likely perished at the hands of assailants who hacked away pieces of his scalp and rammed spikes or swords into his brain as the helmetless monarch knelt in the mud.

So suggests a report, published Wednesday, that in dry forensic prose exposes the horrific demise of one of English history's most controversial monarchs.

It backs anecdotal evidence, made famous by Shakespeare, that Richard was unhorsed before he met his doom.

Bringing together 21st-century science and sketchy knowledge of 15th-century history, the analysis provides a chilling tableau of the brutality of warfare in late mediaeval England.

Richard was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field in Leicestershire, central England, on August 22, 1485.

The monarch's death was the culmination of a three-decade war for the throne, bringing the curtain down on the three-century dynasty of his Plantagenet clan, and ushering in the Tudors.



http://l.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/gYrKGQaF14jApsJXoENiIg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Zmk9ZmlsbDtoPTYzOTtweW9mZj0wO3E9NzU7dz05NjA-/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/Part-PAR-Par7977594-1-1-0.jpg


"The most likely injuries to have caused the king's death are the two to the inferior aspect (lower part) of the skull -- a large sharp-force trauma possibly from a sword or staff weapon, such as a halberd or bill, and a penetrating injury from the tip of an edged weapon," said Guy Rutty, a pathologist at the University of Leicester.

A halberd was a mediaeval battle axe with spiked point, and a bill was a hooked-tip blade on the end of a pole.


- No horse -

"Richard's head injuries are consistent with some near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which suggest that Richard abandoned his horse after it became stuck in a mire and was killed while fighting his enemies," said Rutty.

The study, published in The Lancet medical journal, used X-ray computed tomography (CT) for a microscopic analysis of a skeleton found in 2012 under a car park at a former church.



An undated handout picture released on February 4, 2013 from the University of Leicester shows the base of the skull of king Richard III with the two potentially fatal injuries (AFP Photo/)


After being lost for five centuries, researchers identified the remains as Richard's, backed by DNA analysis and radiocarbon-dating.

The new paper documents nine injuries to the head at or shortly before death, and two to the torso that were likely inflicted post-mortem.

The two blows that probably killed the king likely came from a sword or spike driven into the brain at the base of the skull.

They are consistent with the victim having been "in a prone position or on its knees with the head pointing downwards," the study's authors wrote.

Non-fatal injuries included three cuts to the top of the skull that would have sliced off much of the scalp. A knife or dagger was stuck right through his face, from right cheek to left.



An undated handout picture released on February 4, 2013 from the University of Leicester shows the penetrating injury to the top of the head of king Richard III's skull (AFP Photo/)


"Richard's injuries represent a sustained attack or an attack by several assailants," said Sarah Hainsworth, a professor of materials engineering at the university.

"The wounds to the skull indicate that he was not wearing a helmet, and the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands indicate that he was otherwise still armoured at the time of his death."

Assuming that he had been wearing his royal armour, two injuries to the trunk must have been inflicted after Richard's body was stripped, the team said.

One was a blow to the right tenth rib with what was probably a fine-edged dagger.

The other was a thrust, probably by a sword driven upwards through the right buttock that would have penetrated his bowels and other soft pelvic organs -- a blow that would have caused fatal bleeding had he been alive.



A stained glass window depicting King Richard III and his wife and son in the new visitor centre in Leicester, central England, on July 24, 2014. (AFP Photo/Leon Neal)


- Contemporary accounts -

Without any soft tissue to analyse, the scientists looked at sometimes tiny marks left on the bones -- cuts, abrasions, punctures and so on -- and compared them with the known impacts caused by the weapons of the time.

The gory reconstruction of his death is heavily dependent on assumptions about the wearing of armour and the loss of helmet, but chimes with several contemporary accounts.

One version of events penned the year after Richard's death, said his naked body was slung over his horse like a saddlebag and brought to Leicester.

"Insults" were directed at the corpse by the crowds -- which could be when an onlooker inflicted the pelvic wound by thrusting a blade through the king's buttock, according to the new investigation.

Further mutilation of his corpse would have been stopped -- to display his dead body as a trophy, the defeated king had to be recognisable.

Richard died aged 32 after only two years on the throne. Contemporary accounts described him as generous and a good monarch, but his reputation was blackened by the victorious Tudors.

In Shakespeare's play Richard III, the king's spinal curvature was transformed into a hunchback, and his character was murderous and hungry for power.


http://news.yahoo.com/forensic-sleuths-sketch-richard-iiis-brutal-end-234133503.html

[Buster's Uncle]

King Richard III's Final Moments Were Quick & Brutal
LiveScience.com
By Stephanie Pappas, Live Science Contributor  2 hours ago



A photograph of Richard III's jaw and face show penetrating injuries to the maxilla, or upper jaw.



Richard III's last moments were likely quick but terrifying, according to a new study of the death wounds of the last king of England to die in battle.

The last king of the Plantagenet dynasty faced his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field on Aug. 22, 1485, only two years after ascending the throne. The battle was the deciding clash in the long-running Wars of the Roses, and ended with the establishment of Henry Tudor as the new English monarch.

But Richard III's last moments were the stuff of legend alone, as the king's body was lost until September 2012, when archaeologists excavated it from under a parking lot in Leicester, England. Now, a very delayed postmortem examination reveals that of nearly a dozen wounds on Richard's body, only two were likely candidates for the fatal blow. Both were delivered to the back of the head.


Battle scars

The initial analysis of Richard III's skeleton highlighted the king's scoliosis and battle scars, including at least eight wounds on the skull. In the new postmortem, detailed today (Sept. 16) in the medical journal The Lancet, scientists took a deeper look, recording 11 injuries on Richard's skeleton that occurred around the time of death, including nine injuries to the skull.

Three of the skull injuries were "shaving injuries" to the top of the head, said study researcher Sarah Hainsworth, a professor of materials and forensic engineering at the University of Leicester. These shallow, glancing blows would have sliced the scalp and shaved the skull bone. They would have bled heavily, but would not have been fatal unless untreated. Notably, patterns of striations in the wounds revealed the same weapon probably created these injuries, Hainsworth told Live Science.



This CT reconstruction shows how a blade could have entered Richard III's right buttock, scraping the pelvis as it went.


"If you took a block of cheese into your kitchen and used a serrated blade to cut it, you would see these marks that are characteristic of the blade," she said. Those marks are very similar across the three skull wounds.

But Richard III was almost certainly brought down by more than one man — and more than one weapon. A knife or dagger likely left a 0.4-inch-long (10 millimeters) linear wound on his right lower jaw; he also had a penetrating dagger wound to his right cheek. A keyhole-shaped injury to the top of his head was almost certainly caused by a rondel dagger, a needlelike blade often used in the late Middle Ages. That wound would have caused both internal and external bleeding, but would not have been immediately fatal.

The deathblows likely came from a sword or a bill or halberd, which were bladed weapons on poles often used on the battlefield. At the base of Richard III's skull, researchers found two wounds, one 2.4 by 2.2 inches (60 by 55 mm) and one 1.21 by 0.67 inches (32 by 17 mm). This wound was in line with another, about 4 inches (105 mm) away on the internal wall of the skull, as well as in line with damage to the top vertebrae. In other words, it appears that the blade entered the head, sliced through the brain and hit the opposite side of the skull.

The postmortem also revealed two wounds to Richard III's body. One, likely delivered as a blow from behind with a fine-edged dagger, damaged the right 10th rib. Another, a 1.2-inch-long (30 mm) scrape to the pelvis, delivered through the right buttock, had the potential to be fatal. But that wound was almost certainly delivered after death, Hainsworth said, because Richard III was wearing armor on the battlefield that would have protected him.

Interpreting trauma on a 500-year-old skeleton is difficult, because soft tissue is missing, Heather Bonney, a human remains researcher at the Natural History Museum, London, who was not involved in the research, said in a statement. However, Bonney said, the findings provide a "compelling account" of Richard III's death.


Last moments

Either of the penetrating head wounds would have been fatal very quickly, Hainsworth said. The findings mesh with near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which hold that Richard III's horse had become mired in mud, forcing him to dismount. He had either removed or lost his helmet, leaving his head and face vulnerable.

"He was surrounded, probably by a number of people with medieval arms," Hainsworth said. "He was a warrior, he was a knight, he was a trained fighter, but he would have seen other people die on the battlefield, so he would be very aware of, if you like, what was in store for him."

The researchers can't say for sure in what order the wounds were delivered, but historical accounts hold that Richard was kneeling with his head bent forward when the fatal wounds were delivered — a tale consistent with the large wounds to the base of the skull. Richard's face was actually less mutilated than many battle casualties of the time, Hainsworth said. The choice to spare his face was likely deliberate, she said, as the victors would want to leave no doubt that it was really Richard they had killed.

After death, Richard's body was stripped of armor and slung over a horse to be taken to Leicester for public display. It was then, Hainsworth said, that the wounds to the back and buttock were likely made as a final humiliation to the defeated king.

"It would have probably been quite quick," Hainsworth said of Richard III's death. "But, I would imagine, nonetheless quite frightening."


http://news.yahoo.com/king-richard-iiis-final-moments-were-quick-brutal-231734860.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Forensics suggest Richard III killed by two blows to bare head
Reuters
By Kate Kelland  2 hours ago



news conference in Leicester, central England February 4, 2013. REUTERS/Darren Staples



LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists in Britain have given blow-by-blow details of King Richard III's death at the Battle of Bosworth more than 500 years ago and say two of many blows to his bare head could have killed him very swiftly.

Their analysis of the remains of the last English monarch to die in battle suggest he was attacked by one or more people, and that nine of 11 blows, clearly inflicted in battle, were to his skull and another possibly fatal blow was to his pelvis. The findings also support previous opinion that he had no helmet on.

The head injuries are consistent with some near-contemporary accounts of the battle, the researchers said in findings published in The Lancet medical journal on Wednesday.

"The wounds to the skull suggest that he was not wearing a helmet, and the absence of defensive wounds on his arms and hands indicate that he was otherwise still armored at the time of his death," said Sarah Hainsworth, a professor of materials engineering at Leicester University, who co-led the study.

The remains of King Richard III were found by archaeologists under a municipal car park in the central English city of Leicester in 2012 and subsequently identified by experts from the city's university.



A facial reconstruction of King Richard III is displayed during a news conference in central London in this February 5, 2013 file photo. REUTERS/Andrew Winning


A court ruled in May this year that the king should be reburied near to where he was slain in battle, dashing the hopes of descendants who had wanted his remains to be taken back to his northern English stronghold of York.

According to historical record, the monarch was killed in battle on Bosworth Field, near Leicester, on Aug. 22, 1485, and those accounts suggest Richard was forced to abandon his horse after it became stuck in a mire and was then killed fighting.

His death was the culmination of the Wars of the Roses, a bloody 30-year power struggle between Richard's House of York and the rival House of Lancaster.

Hainsworth's team used whole body computerized tomography (CT) scans and micro-CT imaging to analyze trauma to the bones and determine which of Richard's wounds might have proved fatal.

They also analyzed tool marks on bone to identify the medieval weapons potentially responsible for his injuries.

According to Guy Rutty, a pathologist on the research team, "the most likely injuries to have caused the king's death are the two to the inferior aspect of the skull -- a large sharp force trauma possibly from a sword or staff weapon, such as a halberd or bill, and a penetrating injury from the tip of an edged weapon."

(Editing by Louise Ireland)


http://news.yahoo.com/forensics-suggest-richard-iii-killed-two-blows-bare-233433465.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Forensic science solves mystery of Richard III's death
By/ Agata Blaszczak-Boxe/CBS News/September 17, 2014, 5:00 AM



More than 500 years after Richard III became the last king of England to die in battle, researchers using modern forensic science have figured out which injuries likely caused his death.

Scientists used whole body CT scans and micro-CT imaging of injured bones to examine signs of trauma to the royal skeleton, which was discovered buried under a parking lot in Leicester, England, in September 2012. DNA tests confirmed its identity five months later.

According to the findings outlined in the new study, the king sustained a total of 11 wounds at or near the time of his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. Nine of the injuries were inflicted to the skull, which suggests that he had removed or lost his helmet. Two other wounds were found elsewhere on the body.



Digital photograph with a micro-CT inset of the penetrating injury./ The University of Leicester


The investigators conclude that three of the injuries -- two inflicted to the inferior aspect, or underside, of the king's skull and one to his pelvis -- could have potentially caused death quickly. However, they detected signs that the pelvis injury may have occurred after the king was already dead, and therefore believe the other two injuries likely caused his death.

The fatal wounds to his skull were caused by "a large sharp force trauma possibly from a sword or staff weapon, such as a halberd or bill, and a penetrating injury from the tip of an edged weapon," study author Guy Rutty, of the East Midlands Pathology Unit at the University of Leicester, said in a statement. "Richard's head injuries are consistent with some near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which suggest that Richard abandoned his horse after it became stuck in a mire and was killed while fighting his enemies."



Reconstructed right hemi-pelvis and sacrum. Post-mortem CT scan. Red line shows estimated direction of sharp-force trauma./ UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER


"Richard's injuries represent a sustained attack or an attack by several assailants with weapons from the later medieval period," study author Sarah Hainsworth, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Leicester, said in a statement.

The researchers did not find any indications of defensive wounds to the king's arms and hands, which suggests that Richard was still wearing armor -- except for his helmet -- during his final moments.

King Richard III was immortalized by Shakespeare as a villainous hunchback who had his brother and nephews killed to secure the throne for himself. After the discovery of his long-lost grave two years ago, scientists were able to determine that Richard did, in fact, suffer from scoliosis or curvature of the spine.

"We wanted to know if Shakespeare's description was accurate, or an exaggeration to help legitimize the Tudor monarchs on the throne at the time," Piers Mitchell, an anthropologist at the University of Cambridge, told CBS News in an email when the study of his spine came out last May. Examination of the skeleton using 3D imaging technology indicated "Richard did have a marked spinal deformity due to scoliosis. However, there was no evidence from his skeleton for his having a withered arm or a limp, as portrayed in Shakespeare's play."

The new study was published Tuesday in the journal The Lancet.



Micro-CT image of the mandible/ THE UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER

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